More Bell can do it all: she acts, voices, directs and writes. She's one of the best supporting actors a movie or show can have, and in recent years she's finally landed starring roles. Here are her best performances, ranked.
10 Mr. Peabody and Sherman (2014)
Mr. Peabody and Sherman is a movie based on the "Peabody's Improbable History" segment. Rocky and Bullwinkle, where Sherman uses his time machine to impress his friend Penny, and, as usual in time travel movies, things don't go according to plan and the future is changed. They must fix it before history changes forever. Playing one of the many historical figures they encounter along the way: Mona Lisa, Bell makes the most of this small role which gives her a furious streak as she is bored to death sitting there all day while being painted.
9 No strings attached (2011)
Emma (Natalie Portman) and Adam (Ashton Kutcher) begin a casual sex relationship with No obligations. Will they fall in love? Probably. This is the first script Elizabeth Meriwether (New girl) ever made, and it has an incredible cast starring Portman and Kutcher at the front, but full of other actors who would become stars themselves: Greta Gerwig, Jake Johnson, Mindy Kaling, and Lake Bell. Bell plays Lucy, a bumbling co-worker and almost love interest for Adam. It's not a huge role, but Bell makes the most of it by displaying her character's clumsiness, eagerness, and shyness, who loves Adam from the start and tries to be nonchalant about it.
8 Children's Hospital (2008-2016)
Children's Hospital was a short-form comedy series that spoofed medical dramas, and how the doctors were usually more interested in sex than saving patients (children in this case). The show ran for eight seasons and was full of improv geniuses like Rob Corddry, Ken Marino, and Lake Bell. She played Dr. Cat Black, the beautiful, hapless doctor.
On how Children's Hospital helped her improve her directorial work, Bell told Indie Wire, “You have a lot of big personalities, we're all crazy, and you have two days to do an episode; we shoot two at a time in four days, very fast, all out of order... it's insane. However, it was the perfect boot camp in terms of managing big personalities who are also my friends, but also move very quickly and efficiently.
7 Million Dollar Poor (2014)
Million dollar poor tells the story of sports agent JB (Jon Hamm), who goes to India to recruit talented Indian cricketers with the aim of making them Major League Baseball players. Bell plays Brenda, JB's lodger and possible romantic interest. While her character is supportive, Bell creates a real person with the screen time she has, helping the audience understand what makes Brenda tick.
6 Bless This Mess (2019-2020)
The first Liz Meriwether TV show after that New girl, Bless this junk is about Rio (Bell) and Mike (Dax Shepherd), who live in the big city and move to Nebraska in hopes of living a slower, more rural life. Once there, they discover that the simple life in the country is not so easy. Bell co-created the show with Meriwether and even wrote and directed some episodes of this light-hearted, quirky, fun show that only lasted two seasons.
5 The Secret Life of Pets (2016)
The secret life of pets is an animated film about the life of a terrier named Max (Louis CK) and how his life changes when his owner takes in a stray dog named Duke (Eric Stonestreet). There are other dogs and cats in the movie, such as Kevin Hart's Snowball or Jenny Slate's Gidget. Bell plays Chloe, a sarcastic, overweight tabby cat who is only interested in herself and getting more food. Bell's voice work is always great, and in this movie she has fun as the overeater, sarcastic with the heart of a golden cat. Every animal animated movie needs a not-so-graceful friend to begin with, and Bell's Chloe is the one here. The movie franchise was so successful that it gets its ride at Universal Studios.
4 How to Make It in America (2010-2011)
Born as an East Coast answer Entourage, How to make it in America told the story of Ben (Bryan Greenberg) and Cam (Victor Rasuk) as they try to start a clothing company in New York, with no contacts or experience in that world. The show had one of the best opening titles ever, scored to Aloe Blacc's "I Need A Dollar". Bell plays Rachel, Ben's ex-girlfriend, who she still hangs out with, and falls in love with Domingo (Kid Cudi) in the long run. While her role was not always as rich and full as that of the two leads, this was where many first met Bell, including many in Hollywood, and became her stepping stone to all that was to come.
3 Man Up (2015)
Nancy (Bell) wants to go out and find love, so when Jack (Simon Pegg) mistakes her for his blind date, she decides to go through with it and finds love in the process. After many supporting roles in romantic films, Bell finally plays the leading role Man up, and she does a great job with it, as audiences fall in love with her at the same time that Pegg's character does. The actress plays Nancy as a cute, insecure, but also flirty and dirty mouth, showing the evolution of her character, who starts as a cynic and ends as a hopeless romantic who has just found love.
2 Harley Quinn (2019-present)
The animated Harley Quinn show may be the nastiest, funniest version of Gotham ever made. It all starts when Harley (Kaley Cuoco) decides to break it off with the Joker (Alan Tudyk) and become a genius criminal on her own. Bell voices one of the show's best characters: Poison Ivy; half of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy's relationship. Bell plays her characters strongly on many levels and emotions, both as the exasperated, straight woman in Harley Quinn's world, but also as the maniacal, plant-over-everything ideals her sometimes villainous nature has. It's a fun show, perfect for Venture Bros. fans, where Bell gets to showcase her voice-over talents, as she does many more characters in the TV series, each giving their own accent, diction, and affection.
1 In a World... (2013)
![In a world... Gag Reel [Exclusive]](https://static1.moviewebimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/article/QEysWRGSZNlkxJzZcb17Sw5tVjLoBH.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=1500&dpr=1.5)
In a world… was the first film written, directed and starred by Bell, and tells the story of Carol Salomon (Bell), a vocal coach, who will fight to become the next great movie trailer voiceover. The film shows us the competitive world of the voice-over and at the same time tells the story of the difficulties of a father-daughter relationship in which both do the same job. Bell lets her character be messy, and every other actor shines best, but she is the anchor of the film, creating a three-dimensional persona that the audience wants to succeed.
Of writing, directing and acting in the film, Bell told Tribeca Film, “We shot this in 20 days — we didn't have the luxury of rehearsing too much. We had a lot of dinners and lunches where I'd say, hey, bring your scripts and we'll talk about characters and scenes. We did read-throughs, but I didn't have the time to overly rehearse it.
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